Seven gins an hour at Wick pub taster
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A POPULAR pull for gin connoisseurs was a special tasting event at the Alexander Bain pub in Wick.
The JD Wetherspoon establishment hosted a gin festival which included an evening dedicated to the popular tipple in which seven very different gins were consumed by punters during the hour-long session.
Hostess for the evening was Anne Flynn who introduced each of the gins and explained a little about the provenance and flavours of the alcohol. The first glass was actually a distilled non-alcoholic gin called Ceder’s Crisp from Sweden and could have fooled some of the best palates in the house.
"I've been working in bars for 10 years nearly and I love the banter. This is a part-time job and I actually work full-time as a teacher," Anne said.
Her exuberance and cheery demeanour made Anne the perfect hostess for the evening and, ably supported by manager Jamie Gunn, brought to the 20-strong table a wide variety of tastes from pineapple and ginger to strawberries and cream.
"Jamie, our manager, is the one behind it all and put all the information together," she added.
"If we're [the staff] on a night off and not driving, he asks us to try them so we know what they're like before serving them. That's how I got the knowledge for this event, which is actually part of a gin festival."
Manager Jamie said that the gin festival, which finished on Sunday, was a great way to get more people to try more gins. "We had the festival before but people weren't too keen on buying something they've never had so this event was a good idea to give them some tasters."
Jamie said that the more popular gins tend to be sweeter and are "younger friendly" such as Parma Violets, Irn Bru and various "glittery" ones which he describes as very sugary. "What we had tonight, at the tasting event, I would class as real gins where the flavour of the gin comes through.
"The Daffy gin, for example, is 43.4 per cent which is about as strong as you can go before spirits start tasting of paint stripper. They've taken it to the edge of strength and flavour."
Jamie and Anne were delighted with the responses to their gin tasting evening from the participants. Roy was on holiday from Milton Keynes with his wife Helen and said he was normally a red wine drinker. "I think we would probably have preferred to drink them without the tonic to fully taste the botanicals but otherwise it was a superb night," he said.
Jordan from Wick said it was a "fantastic chance to get a taste of what Wetherspoon's has to offer". Hugh, also from Wick, said: "It was a tremendous selection of gins and I enjoyed them all. I think I'll go through them all again now!"
